This is how Android 14's predictive back navigation will function

The majority of us now use our phones entirely differently thanks to gesture navigation, but even if it feels like a significant advancement over the hardware buttons of the past, there is still much space for improvement. Android 14 could improve life even further by showing you where the back gesture will redirect to build upon the foundations Android 13 created for a predictive back gesture.

When a user is about to use the back gesture to navigate to the home screen on Android 13, this predictive support provides a preview of the screen. Several Google apps, including Google TV and the Phone app on Pixel phones, support this fairly basic mode.

This week at the Android Developer Summit, Google is discussing the falsing phenomena, which is when users fail to notice this warning and unintentionally close an app (via 9to5Google). Although the back gesture is an ergonomic interaction model, the company explained during the Platform Track live stream that it would be much more beneficial to also show users a preview of the screen they'll land on as they follow through with the gesture, even when that screen isn't the launcher's default screen.

When you swipe back from an open event page in Android 14, predictive back may display the app's schedule view, using the Google Calendar example Google showed on stage as an example. Developers are free to use their own custom animations to display this preview, but they must also make changes to the app manifest to indicate how their apps will handle back gestures rather than relying on the Android operating system to do so.

Along with some of the other helpful new features we anticipate, Google says Android 14 will launch in 2023 and include this new, more informative back navigation experience.